"This is beginning to feel like the longest two day trip ever! Sis, when are we go-"

"We'll be there in about twenty minutes. See? You can see the town up on the horizon!"

"Ohohohohoho! Anticipatory remarks! The magic of twin power is revealed~!"

"Well, Kona, twins have run in our family for centuries..."

"Tsukasa, that wasn't the 'magic of twin power' she was referring to..."

"Kagami understands me!"

"No. And by the way... since when does Konata go by 'Kona'?"

"Um, I thought it would be a nice nickname for her, sis.."

"I originally had another one in mind, but Tsukasa didn't quite like it as much..."

Kagami had a feeling she was going to regret her next question. "... tell us Konata what was this nickname that you so lovingly devised for yourself?"

"Hero of the panties."

An unexpected chilly wind blew through the sudden dead silence that encompassed the travelers.

-A Thousand Miles of Fire-

An Explosive Orientation

A fresh red, angry hand mark was visible in the early morning sun on the Kokiri's face. "I still haven't decided whether to capitalize the 'p' in 'panties' or not though..." Konata elaborated to no one in particular. Kagami still seated on her horse ahead of her twitched in response to the comment. Tsukasa felt another migraine coming along.

Thankfully, a savior came. This particular savior happened to come in the form of a small bustling town about twenty yards north of the triad of girls.

"OH! THINE GLORIOUS GOAL OF THE CASTLE TOWN! AT LAST!"

"Shut up! You legitimately have no idea what you're even talking about!" Kagami barked. Patience was pretty much nonexistent.

Tsukasa sighed.

They approached the wooden gate and much to their surprise there were Hylian guards obstructing their path. Hyrule was known as one of the most peaceful kingdoms and hadn't seen war in generations. The castle town was known for being open to travelers. However, this no longer seemed to be the case.

"Halt! I'm sorry to inconvenience you, but recently things were stolen from the castle. We've had to temporarily heighten security for the purpose of catching this culprit. For what purpose do you have for coming here?"

Kagami nudged her horse up first. "My sister and I are enrolled in the School..."

"Please present your enrollment contract then."

"Alright..." Kagami pulled out both her and Tsukasa's contracts. There was no way Tsukasa could be entrusted with her own important documents. The guards checked it over and nodded and returned them both to Kagami.

"Ahem." They stared at Konata pointedly now seeing her. Kagami facepalmed. The one time she actually managed to forget about Konata. "So, why do you wish to enter the castle town?" The guard closer to Kagami asked.

Kagami went pale. She hadn't the time to think of an excuse for Konata. Quickly! How about she sai-

"I'm here to PAR-TAY~!"

"..."

Before she knew it Konata was literally booted off the back of Kagami's mare and found herself sampling the dirt once again.

"In the last few days I've been through a lot of rough play..."

The gate shut behind the Hiiragi twins and the guards crossed their pikes in an 'x' to block any further traffic. Kagami, in reflex, looked worriedly behind her to make sure Konata was alright. Tsukasa sent Konata a similar apologetic look. Konata (still chilling spread-eagle in the mud) waved to her casually from her position. As if she were waving them off. Kagami rolled her eyes while Tsukasa laughed nervously and they both refocused on the path ahead of them. They still had to go to orientation after all.

"See you soon Tsukasa! ... Don't forget me Kagmiiiii~!"

For the first time in a while Kagami started giggling-much to her twin's surprise.

There was a knock on her door. Ayano, Princess Ayano rolled out of her bed weirdly gracefully. She mumbled something to herself and rubbed her eyes to get the sleep out of them and face the cloudy morning. She had slept in a little later than she usually would. She suppressed a small yawn as she approached the great oak door.

"Mornin' Princess~! Officer Yui here just doing her usual rounds!"

The princess put her hand on the door to push it open, but then suddenly heard the sounds of someone snoring. She quickly pivoted to the source of the snoring and saw her Gerudo "friend" stretched out and sleeping soundly. Ayano felt her blood pressure rise. She took her hand off the door and quickly glanced around her room.

"Princess? Everything alright?"

"Y-yeah, just a second Yui..."

Ayano saw one of her shoes that she had uncharacteristically kicked off last night whilst trying to persuade the Gerudo to leave the castle for the night at the very least (for her own safety). Clearly, Ayano regarded the sleeping teen, it didn't work. Fearing the time constraint Ayano made a quick decision and lobbed her shoe at Misao's head. Contact was made.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Geez, Princess what's taking so long?"

Misao's eyes bugged open realizing that the voice came from the other side of the door, and that the voice probably belonged to a palace official. Hylian palace officials and Gerudos didn't coexist too well.

"Sorry! Almost ready..."

"... Princess, is there a boy in there with you...?"

Misao smirked and opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the other shoe in the pair hitting her face. Ayano swerved to her angrily with clenched teeth telling her to shut up and hide. Misao looked around the room for a hiding spot and slid under the bed expertly... a little too expertly for Ayano's tastes.

Ayano let her head guard in maintaining her calm façade on the outside with ease. She made to casually turn to her room as naturally as possible, but her eyes quickly scanned the room to confirm Misao's disappearance. Yui made her way over to Ayano's bed and sat down on it as she continued to discuss her training the new recruits. Yui's break only allowed her to be here for about ten more minutes. Misao just needed to be undetected for ten more minutes.

The princess continued to pay attention and remark at the appropriate times in the conversation. She had made for her and Yui. Only three minutes left until Yui would leave. Just three minutes.

Ayano almost choked on her tea when she heard snoring followed by Misao's hand now sticking out from under the bed. Right next to Yui's right foot. Yui chatted on happily.

"Heyhey, do you guys have anything I can wipe off this mud with?"

"..."

"Okay~then, how about this rag right here then~?"

"H-how did you-"

Konata was suddenly behind one of the guards plucking a clean rag out of his back pocket. She quickly wiped her face off.

"Ah~ that's the stuff. Much better! Thankiez, kind sir-WHOA!"

The blue haired girl jumped in the air to avoid the panicked guards wide swing with his pike. When he swung back around at her neck level intent on KO'ing the Kokiri Konata jumped again, but this time flipped in the air and grabbed the end of the pike and redirected his moment and slammed it into the ground. Thus, getting the pike stuck in the dirt. The guard guffawed and looked over to see why his fellow guard had yet to assist him. He was pinned by his clothes to the adjacent ancient sentry tower by two certain daggers.

The first guard gave up on freeing his current weapon from the ground and drew his sword instead. Konata backed away nervously fully aware of the fact that she was now unarmed. The guard pinned by the aformentioned weapons (aka Konata's "babies") began struggling harder to get loose. He was unaware that his burly physique was actually making the entire rickety structure rock back and forth a bit.

Konata backflipped to the other pinned guards location and while stepping on his face she planted her feet hard into the tower and yanked her weapons back out.

"Heave HO! Gotchya~! Did the babies miss their mommy-"

CRACK!

The empty sentry tower groaned before leaning towards the town and then finally it began to splinter at the base and fall like a big tree. Both of the guards just dropped their jaws and weapons in shock. The tower seemed to fall in slow motion.

"Oops!"

The three that were brawling all stopped and stared in amazement as the entire sentry tower made contact with the earth. It made a sickening crunch simultaneously kicking up a lot of dust.

Naturally, Konata took that as an opportunity to escape.

CRUNCH!

Everyone froze in their seats and even the instructor, finishing up on giving living and dorm details, paused.

What... was that...? Kagami thought with a frantic tone. A few dust motes could be seen in the partial sunlight illuminating the classroom. Everything had gone very quiet-not in a serene way.

They had only left the Kokiri by herself for an hour tops and shit was already going down. She had a feeling she knew who the cause of it was, but she desperately hoped that it wasn't so.

It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fi-

"He-HEY WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?" Off in the distance out the open window in the classroom the sounds of yelling and scuffling could be heard.

"Kukuku, thou shalt not ever catch me! For I am... the Master of the panty flash®!"

The two twins looked at each other and sighed in sync. No doubt due to their 'magic of twin power' as the blue haired trouble maker would say. The older twin would never admit it, but she hoped that her shorter friend would end up unscathed... for the most part that is.

Clouds had begun to gather, darken and begin to drizzle. This didn't stop the remaining sentries in the castle town's southern perimeter from equipping themselves and setting up to take the shot on the new threat.

Konata made her way through town for the past hour with absolutely no plan or care in the world. She sidestepped incoming weapon jabs of guards on her heels with ease. It was like an extremely fun game to her.

It was an extremely fun game to her.

She knew she didn't have the strength to disarm the guards nor to land a hit to cause actual damage through their thick Hylian armor. She had to admit that her pursuers seemed strangely persistant. The Kokiri turned the corner by some academic looking buildings only to find yet another group of guards.

"After her! Catch that girl with the blue hair!"

The short girl wondered what her blue hair had to do with anything. She assumed that it must be a rare hair color as she had yet to meet anyone with a similar hue of hair. Continuing to ponder her hair she then mentally grimaced wondering what exactly they were planning on doing with her if she fell into Hyrule's custody.

The forest girl deftly scrambled up onto the roof of a building.

"You will never make these legendary locks into a wig~!"

Her pursuers chose to not even bother dignifying that one with an answer.

Unfortunately, climbing on that roof may have distanced her from her adversaries on the ground, but unbeknownst to Konata she had put herself in clear sight of the Hylian archers-trained magical archers whose weapons of choice are explosive arrows. However, Konata's instincts did kick in and she maneuvered to the edge of the roof to survey her surroundings. Perhaps, if the sound of the rain steadily hitting the tin roof of the grain storage building was on wasn't making so much noise maybe she would have heard the archers testing their bowstrings.

Huffing, Kagami swung the door open of her dormitory to make her way to the market in the center of town to buy some essentials. Seriously, Tsukasa has been so forgetful lately. Not to mention that she had to round up that crazy girl at one point later on too...

Three archers pulled back, arrow set, in unison. Their sights were set on the "girl with blue hair". At once thee hands released their holds on their bowstrings. Due to the rain though one of the archer's grip slipped and the shot's trajectory was now a bit off.

Konata turned to her left and two things caught her eye. 1. the flash in the wet air to tell her that there were three objects-probably arrows-approaching her general position 2. Kagami was literally exiting the building on Konata's lower left.

Time seemed to slow down as the Kokiri then realized that one of the arrows was hurtling towards her friend. Accidentally, overthrowing one of her daggers to deflect the shot away from Kagami. This heroic act was successful as the arrow was knocked 20 yards away from Kagami before it detonated, but it led to the Kokiri to lose her balance and fall off the roof.

Luckily, the master of the panty flash managed to catch herself by driving her other dagger into the side of the building. Mentally congratulating herself on doing on a sturdy looking building this time.

That was when the other two arrows made contact with the building.

She thought she could hear someone scream her name over the din of the explosion. Maybe.

"... and you wouldn't believe how stinky it was!"

The princess laughed at the cheeky Gerudo's story. She was already becoming very fond of the energetic desert dweller, but she was really beginning to worry about her new friend getting caught by her own imperial forces. Just how long was she planning on staying in the castle for...?

The desert girl continued to tell her story of how she and her Kokiri friend got a Zora drunk one time at one of their tribe gatherings. Misao was perched comfortably on the princess' windowsill as she talked letting a sheepish smile show on her tanned face. Ayano felt her heart flutter.

Uh, what?...!

Before the princess of Hyrule's thoughts could take a more ... dangerous turn, her ruminations were interrupted by the sounds of heavy, brisk approaching footfalls. Assuming it to be one of her guards, Ayano pivoted to tell Misao to hide, but the girl had already disappeared. Ayano desperately hoped that the Gerudo had not chosen to hide under her bed again.

Moments later Ayano's door was wrenched open and the princess once again met with her head guard Yui.

"Princess, there has been an unauthorized person in the castle town. We dispatched the archers and just finally apprehended her."

"Since when did people need authorization to enter the castle town to begin with?" Ayano crossed her arms in frustration. She had a feeling where this mandate was handed down from.

"It was a mandate from the council, your majesty. It seems that they believe there is a thief in our midst as valuable table centerpieces are disappearing from around the castle as of late." Yui had automatically changed to her formal explanatory tone to her liege.

It took all of Ayano's self-control not to glare in the general direction of her guest. She was well aware of the fact that Misao was from a tribe of revered "demon thieves".

"... Alright. Well, that aside. Why were the archers dispatched without my word? Where is the justification for that? The archers are one of our more higher ranking forces. It was only one intruder, correct?"

"Ah... yes."

"So?... From what I understand the archers fired without consent."

The blonde beauty was not happy to hear this news. The archers had to receive her permission to fire due to the highly explosive nature of their weapons there was generally high amounts of collateral damage done to the town. She didn't want to endanger her townspeople over petty reasons such as a minor intrusion.

"The archers did fire with consent."

Ayano could feel her blood boil. She as the crowned princess and the only living member of the royal family had the exclusive right to grant permission. Not even the council, under any circumstances with the exception of her death, could give consent for the deployment and use of the upper echelons of the Imperial forces.

"Whose?"

"Under article four section six of the Recovery Mandates..." Ayano racked her brains for that particular piece of legislation. She was very small when it was originally passed, days after her father's assassination. It was passed by the council and the King's former advisors. "... therein if an individual that crosses into castle town borders that could potentially or be a member of the Izumi clan all force necessary has consent to be utilized in order to capture them... preferably alive for questioning."

"That's bullshit!" The very room seemed to shutter at the sight of the princess' extremely rare but terrifying temper. "That clan has ceased to exist for almost two decades now. They're practically a legend or a fairy tale!" The princess searched by her desk to find a copy of this legislation so that she could examine the article cited and begin to look for the loophole that was clearly used to grant consent to the archers.

"With all due respect, your majesty, the intruder had the movements and the telltale blue hair of the Izumi clan..."

Ayano dropped her tome of legislation. Blue hair was the defining quality of the Izumi clan. No one in all of Hyrule's lands possessed that hair color except for them. The princess' face showed visible shock for a few moments, but then she turned to Yui calmly.

"Is she alive?"

"Yes, she's knocked out for now, but we expect her to come around soon."

From her hiding spot in the closet (Yup, the closet.) Misao couldn't help but recall that one of her closest friends had a hair color that was a rare shade of blue.

When the Kokiri first came to she thought she was back home in a deeper area of the Lost Woods with the trees at their thickest thus blocking out most of the sunlight. However, as her eyes adjusted to the dingy, moldy and drippy area she realized that she was housed in some sort of underground manmade structure.

Rubbing the bruised right shoulder that she had landed on from the blast, Konata eased herself up from her previously prone position on the floor. She blearily inspected herself for any major injuries besides some nasty bruises here and there and found none. She immediately checked her right wrist and was relieved to see her bracelet still there. However, her hands then flew to her sides to find them empty.

She was missing her weapons. Standing up, she realized that she was in a cell and through the rusted bars she could see the twin scabbards of her weapons lying on the table across from her cell along with her satchel that contained her ocarina-not that she had a use for it in the present moment anyway. With the exception of the occasional drop, probably due from the rain above, she heard nothing but her own breathing. It practically felt like every inhale and exhale echoed throughout.

There didn't seem to be a guard on duty at the moment. Being optimistic Konata tried to open her cell door but to no avail. She wondered if it was even capable of opening in the first place due to the amount of rust in the bars and door itself.

Konata sat back down on the solitary wooden stool in her cell. She had no idea how long she had even been out for, nor did she have any way of telling what time of day it even was. Worst of all the moldy air and the lack of sunlight was really starting to get to her. This place was beyond creepy.

Her whole cell block seemed to be empty though. Hyrule wasn't exactly a land filled with crime after all. She doubt this place got much use, if ever. For a moment Konata wondered if they had perhaps had already forgotten her. Although she doubted it due to the little fireworks display the town witnessed in order to take her down. The Kokiri did feel a decent amount of pride recalling that.

Her mind switched to wondering whether Kagami was alright. One of the last things she saw was her successful deflection of the misguided arrow, but still the explosions were pretty rough. Kagami was a tough tsundere though so she had some confidence in the girl.

Still there were no other signs of life in the vicinity. It was starting to unnerve the Kokiri, who had been around living things such as trees, plants, and more recently an angry tsundere, for most of her life. Everything was so damn dusty. Yuck.

"Now would be a grand time to let me out and let me know what's going on~!"

The princess walked swiftly down the plush hallway making her way to the old practically abandoned prison grounds. Yui was trotting at her side escorting her. A guard with his post at the entrance had notified her that he heard sounds of movement in the prison-most likely indicating that the prisoner was awake and ready for communication, hopefully.

Ayano wondered briefly just what Misao was doing now that she had left her alone in her room. She had trust in Misao despite her background and race. The girl seemed pretty harmless in actuality. Ayano just really wanted to know how the hell she got into her chambers to begin with? Misao, knowing her, would probably never giver her a satisfactory answer though. Misao and now this girl... a lot of strange things were happening lately. Ayano sighed and refocused her thoughts back to the present situation.

"What's this girl's name?"

"... ah well, she called herself the 'master of the panty flash'..."

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